What a read! A historical fiction feast this one. Three interweaving stories but with the strong central character of the real life Thomas de Quincy who was known for taking opium. So much so, he even wrote a book on it in real life.

Novels which interweave fact and fiction are really fascinating and this was no exemption. A strong story, strong characters and an insight into a very troubled man. London, comes through in all its stinking glory with the opium fog killing you if the stench and the dirt on the ground doesn’t get you first.

It’s very immersive and I loved Annie in particular. Victorian life was hard and this gives a really good insight into the trials and problems of the day. Why people took opium and the different classes in life and how often money does not make you as happy as you think it will. Who is the most trapped person - a prostitute, a slave or someone who has wealth but has to live in a gilded cage?

A real historical feast for the senses.

Thomas de Quincey was an English Essayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. He dreamed of becoming a poet, which he never did. Instead he befriended William Wordsworth – a major English Romantic poet.

Set at the very beginning of the 19th century, this book briefly touches upon his childhood and mostly concentrates on his time living rough, penniless, and his encounter with Anne in Oxford Street and her subsequent disappearance. I wished this book brought more details of his life, but as author mentions he was an opium edict and by no means a reliable source of information.

The story is revealed through three characters in subsequent voices: Thomas, Anne (his first love), and Tuah (fictional character).

After the death of his sister by which he is deeply affected, young Thomas feels very lost. He no longer has a sister who can interpret what their mother tells them. He feels very disconnected with their harsh mother, revealing his delicate nature. As a young man he gets employed by his mother’s friend, Lady Carberry, as library organizer, which is of great interest to Thomas. The arrangement extends to teaching her Ancient Greek as well. This makes him very happy, but then an event occurs and penniless Thomas drifts into the streets of London.

After the death of her father, Anne and her mother struggle to survive. Not only poor conditions, but also her mother’s new partner’s abusiveness leads Anne on a path to search for something hopeful. At the age of 12, she has a lot to learn. Her new path doesn’t exactly take her to a more hopeful future.

Tuah (fictional character) is a black man captured by Dutch men. He becomes captain’s cabin boy. When on land, he lives with captain and his brother Archie, who teaches him English and Bible. Under Archie’s wing Tuah feels safe.

As the story progresses, it connects all characters together.

Overall, it is an engrossing story. However, it takes a while to get to like Tuah. His story of his capture isn’t touching by any means. On the other hand, Anne’s story is deeply moving. Her voice is so pure and honest. I connected with this character right away. Thomas’ story starts with his fascination of Aladdin, for which I didn’t care. I started connecting with his story in the subsequent chapters, when his delicate nature is being revealed.

A beautifully tragic story.
The Alphabet of the Hearts DesiRe by Brian Keany is full of heart-aching losses from the past, lonely presents, & hopeless futures in the most beautiful way possible. It is a story that speaks of the one human emotion that we all suffer from regardless of race, creed or social status- it speaks of LONELINESS!
Anne, Thomas & Tuah, all from different backgrounds, but all victims of circumstance , find themselves intertwined in a story together . The cards seemed to keep piling higher & higher against them, as they find themselves living in the streets of London. Every turn in a disappointment, every path leads to loss, but will the succumb to the sadness on the streets or will they push on forward with nowhere to go?
Perhaps it is the loneliness that is the secret language of the hearts desire!

Beautifully written. I liked each character and how the lives of the characters intersected. Loved the description of life in London in the 19th century. However, I thought the book was a bit too long and slow.

The Alphabet of Heart's Desire is a beautiful work of Historical Fiction, First, the cover is absolutely beautiful. But the story is equally so. Loosely based on the British writer Thomas de Quincey, the book follows his early life, as well as two other protagonists, Anne and Tuah. Each story is poignant and captivating. Each protagonist is a person who has essentially been cast aside and are struggling to find their place.

The Alphabet of Heart's Desire is told by three people who were strangers but their lives converge and it changes them. This an easy read which is well written. It is very sad and harrowing in places. There was a lot of poverty in London and some people lived in terrible conditions. I felt so sorry for Anne the whole way through the book. Living in poverty she gets tricked into prostitution. Her struggles to get money and survive are hard to read in places. Overall this book is an interesting read.

This is a fascinating historical novel which takes in several of the more nefarious trades of Britain in centuries past as part of its plot. Using interwoven bildungsroman narratives, Kearney focuses on the idea that hardship and violence can dog a childhood, wherever you grow up. Anne, growing up in London in terrible poverty, is forced to turn to her own resources in order to survive; Tuah is captured from his unnamed island (he is later called ‘the Malay’ by adults who encounter him) as part of the global slave trade and traded until he reaches London; a young Thomas De Quincey experiences forms of cruelty and neglect peculiar to a harsh upper class English family. In different ways, all three will be involved in some way in the flourishing opium trade. Of course, it is De Quincey who gave us Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), and Kearney has used elements of this long essay as a starting point for the characters of his young Thomas and his relationship with Anne.
One of the initial strengths of this novel is the distinct voices Kearney adopts. This, particularly effective in the early stages of his novel when all three characters are children, becomes less marked as Anne, Tuah and Thomas grow older and their stories begin to merge. But it is at this same point that the links between their stories really start to work and the reader can appreciate the impact of the opium trade and the devastating popularity of laudanum in early Nineteenth Century London. Kearney creates a detailed sense of sensation in his novel, reinforcing the idea that, for many, this potent mixture of opium and alcohol, offered an escape from harsh existences. In a more optimistic vein, reading is also recognised as a means of alleviating or transcending hardship – this is the cultural world which sees the publication of Coleridge’s and Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads – but the practical need for survival may sometimes make this feel a cold comfort.
It struck me that whilst this is a historical novel, and Kearney’s closely observed details mean that the reader is fully immersed in his historical London, all of the trades involved are still horribly present in our world today. Kearney’s writing is vivid in its depiction of the terrible violence and cruelty all three protagonists witness and experience as they struggle to survive. Help, for all three, comes from unexpected quarters, but it is usually a fragile security. Everything can be traded and nothing is safe. Indeed, early on, Thomas’ sadistic older brother even tells him, ‘The basis of taxation in Greenhay [the family home] is obedience.’ It’s often an unsettling read but Kearney also brings a warmth to many of his memorable main characters. I heartily recommend it.

The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire is published by Holland House on 16 Nov 2017. Thanks to Netgalley for my ARC.

I received this as an ARC from Netgalley.

I had never heard of the book or the author but enjoyed this story. It takes places in the early 1800's in England and tells the story of three different characters in rotation. You aren't sure how they will all intersect with each other until almost the end. It felt like an accurate portrayal of what was life across cultures and classes at that time.
I found the book very interesting to read and thought it was well written.

Would recommend this for anyone interested in historical fiction or English fiction.

Normally I don't like novels told in multiple voices but this one works because we move to someone else at just right moment in story, and we also may have the chronology of De Quincey's life in mind .. but even if we don't the almost generic progress of a young aristocrat's waistral life has its own logic .. exchanges among people are accurate and people change .. the young woman Thomas falls for is a survivor and helps him too by her own lights even though it means disappearing. Very convincing portrayals and descriptions of place and difficulties of life with no money in a supportless society. A bit grim throughout but well written with redeeming flashes of life affirmation now and again.

I received this from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

The book rotates chapter by chapter around three characters. Thomas, a middle class person who is reduced to living on the streets of London. Anne, a prostitute who finds Thomas nearly dead on the streets and nurses him back to health. Tuan, a captured slave come to live in London and eventually freed by his owner.

There were many great descriptive passages about living in London in the 1800's. The sights, sounds, smells, all bought the past to life. But the book had its ebbs and flows, the majority of the book I was confused how the three main characters related to each other.

3.25 stars

I’m not trying to make out that I was innocent. You don’t grow up innocent in Limehouse. But I was ignorant. I saw things but I didn’t always know what they meant.

Brian Keaney writes beautifully, the sentences can have you smiling, cringing or gagging in disgust. I felt like I was Anne, stepping over oysters of spit (yuck), choking back the rotten smell of men, forced into a life of prostitution. Anne was by far the best character in this novel, how could Thomas de Quincy not fall in love with her? Anne’s mother is scraping by to keep them alive, but everything just gets more bleak, more so when her mother takes up with a dangerously cruel man, Harold Lampton (who carried his anger around with him everywhere he went, nursing it like a baby and feeding it with little tidbits of grievance,). It isn’t long before he poisons her innocence, and in this world and time, women didn’t have much chance to fight such men. In time, she escapes to a life, while not better, at least one she can be free of Harold. Anne and Thomas live in completely different worlds, Anne makes her living in the underbelly, Thomas is as sheltered and pristine as a proper man should be in the 1800’s. But some mysterious things happen to his own murdered sister, some sort of ‘punishment’ for not obeying? So just how ‘safe’ was his surroundings? Bucking at the life he feels confines him, he is ousted into the streets where Anne comes to his rescue. The London he now finds himself in, with scratching rats and violent strangers is nothing he could ever prepare for. The young man, one day to become a famous author, is a nervous, innocent youth before he falls for Anne. She comes to his rescue one night. Hope against hope they will last, but reality loves nothing better than to separate unfit lovers. Not before she takes the ‘bewildered’ Thomas home and nurses him to health with laudanum. “The cure for every pain and sorrow.” There is a magic in that “angel kiss” of laudanum. That isn’t all she gives him, though. He discovers many delights in Anne. That she could be loved by a poet, a man from a finer world, when she lived with vulgarity all her life, finally loved like a lady and not just a ‘street girl’- could it be? Could it really be?

Tuah is the third character, a slave taken abroad a ship, learning all horrors of man and that things can be worse, even from the pits of hell, there is always worse. He later is sold to a ship captain that becomes his future salvation. Both he and Anne are tied to Archie, a man who once read to Anne after a terrible incident. For Anne, the words do their healing, especially for an uneducated girl like her. Archie is a man of literature, which holds a special magic for Thomas, Tuah and Anne alike. The wheels of fate turn as it throws these three children about, each slaves to different lives, and tosses them into a fractured adulthood.

It isn’t a love story, and it is. While the rot of men and the world steals Anne’s innocence, somehow she still remains pure in some distant way. This was a hell of a novel! There wasn’t a boring moment, and the historical aspect felt genuine. There is no romanticizing about this time period, there is so much grim and grit that you know how bad things were for the unfortunate. I could smell the rot, tremble at the horrors, and warm at any token of kindness tossed Anne’s way. Three narrators delight the reader through the entirety of the novel, which is much like living in their shoes.

Publication Date: November 16, 2017

Holland House

It is more like Ann's fictional biography, how she got looked on opium/ laudanum. The only thing that I find inconsistent, is that the author chooses to write in present language. I only expected the conversations to be so, because reading the whole thing in Thomas' era was quite a struggle for me. In the end, that was how I remember that Ann is not real, not in this book.
Overall, I like the whole thing that is based on a real person, and she is quite well fleshed out. Even the side character Tuah was a pleasant to read. However, it is not really my type.

This is a work of historical fiction focusing on the central character of Thomas De Quincey, an English essayist who lived through England's Regency and Victorian Eras. As I joyously ravished this book over the course of several days, I had no idea I was reading about an actual notable figure, nor whom the main character of the story was...until the very end. This is because each chapter deals with one of three characters: Thomas, Anne and Tuah, and are titled as such. Their individual stories are so lushly and richly written, they could have been a book unto themselves; but, they are deliciously woven together as the book nears its conclusion.

When we meet Thomas, Anne and Tuah they are each on the cusp of their teenage years, and all experience horrific tragedies...enough to cause post traumatic stress disorder in anyone. They have all lost either one or both of their parents and at some point have no idea how they are going to eat, where they can find shelter or earn money to live. Although Thomas was born into an upper class family, his widowed mother was quite a dour and harsh parent. Anne was born into an already poor family, but when her father drowned after an alcoholic binge, the living situation became even more dire. Tuah was abducted from his native home by Dutchmen onto a slave ship that docked in England. Their collective heartbreak, desperation and challenges are both poignant and riveting to read through.

Another common thread binding all three characters are their eventual associations with or consumption of the potent narcotic laudanum (tincture of opium). This drug became popular during these times for those suffering both mental and physical anguish.

I won't divulge any more details to spoil things for potential readers. In summation, this is a book that will whisk you away to historic England, with a very meaningful story and characters that will touch your heart. I award this a rare 5 stars.

The Alphabet of Heart's Desire is a difficult book to rate. There were many things I enjoyed: the distinctive 'voices' of the three main characters, the easy, simple flow of the prose, and the premise. However, although I enjoyed the individual storylines, they didn't come together for me. Thomas and Anne were fine, but Tuah never really seemed to fit, especially since he didn't connect fully with the other two until the end. I think, perhaps, the storytelling was too simplistic for the kind of connection Keaney was trying to achieve. Regardless, this was still a pleasant, quick historical read, so I am giving it four stars. De Quincey is an interesting figure and this work had real potential; it just doesn't quite achieve all its aims.

The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire tells the story of author Thomas de Quincey through three different narratives. I really liked the writing and the attention to detail. A wonderful picture of life in the early nineteenth century was painted. However, for me, the story itself moved a little too slow. I thought it took too long for the three narratives to come together. Despite the beautiful writing, I found myself skimming entire sections, especially those involving Thomas. And I think this is a fundamental flaw of historical fiction based on real life stories; somehow they just aren’t captivating enough to hold my attention from beginning to end.

I loved the concept of exploring one event from the history of a literary genius. The Alphabet of Heart's Desire follows three disparate characters and their intertwining lives in early 19th-century London. Tuah, an ex-slave; Anne, a prostitute; and a young Thomas de Quincey. Weaving through the story, dealing out pleasure and pain in equal measure, is the ominous presence of opium.
The narrative is told from the perspective of each of the three main characters. Each character has an individual, if slightly contrived, voice. The characters themselves are well developed, and while they do give a cross section of 19th-century society, they do not feel stereotyped. The writing is good and often wryly funny, although I was rarely completely absorbed by it. The highlights are certainly the descriptions of early 19th-century life in London. Overall an enjoyable read for fans of literary historical fiction but this didn't quite live up to my expectations.

The telling of this story, based loosely on the real life of Thomas De Quincey, opium addict and writer, is split between three narrators: Thomas himself, young and naive and alone after having left his family home; Anne, a Whitechapel prostitute; and Tuah, a young man captured as a slave who finds himself in London. The three narrators tell different aspects of the story, although their paths sometimes cross in Mrs Dempsey's, the Whitechapel brothel where Anne works, or the shop where the prostitutes buy their second hand finery.

I really liked the period feel of the book, although London was portrayed (probably very rightly!) as quite unrelentlessly grim. The characters were interesting and varied and the story moved between the tellers fluently.

My main issue with the story was that it was quite slow-paced. It didn't seem to really be going anywhere and, when it did, elements remained unsatisfactory. There was much to like, but still some frustrations with the plot itself.

Overall, this is a good historical story that provides colour and interest, but (unfortunately) won't have you up page-turning long into the night.

'The Alphabet of Heart's Desire' is a well-written piece of historical fiction. The outline of this book is drawn with facts taken from the life of Thomas De Quincy, an essayist from 19th century famously known for his work 'Confessions of an Opium-eater', and colored in with the fictional world of Anne and Tuah created by Brian Keaney.

Summary:

Thomas is the prodigal son of De Quincy household and is a scholar but naive at dealings of life. He wants to be a poet. The inability of his family to understand his potential though leaves him to find his own path in life. He ends up sick and miserable.

Anne is a street girl who is abused at the hands of life. One day while looking for customers she finds Thomas collapsed on Oxford street. She takes him in and nurses him back to health. For the first time in their lives, they both find happiness in the love and the laudanum(Opium) they share, no matter the squalor that surrounds them.

Tuah is a freed slave who fails to belong as an Englishman even after adopting the language, the culture and the religion of England.

Beautiful Writing:

The book interleaves the story of these three people and they appear to be as separate from each other as possible. But then the thread of their lives start to entangle and entwine each time their paths cross and create the web in which they find themselves enmeshed.

The narration is beautiful and atmospheric. I found not a single dull moment. It reads so well as fiction, I did not realize until half the book in, that it was about a real person.

The characters are very well developed and I found myself completely vested in their lives, lost in the setting of early 19th century England. I wanted to scream at Thomas at times to man up and do something instead of seething and raging silently.

One particular detail that stood out for me was how the language differed for the three narrations. It was fancy and sophisticated in Thomas’s sections while full of slangs and easy grammar in Anne’s. Phrases from Bible in Tuah’s sections were aptly used.

Misunderstood Genius:

The only thing that Thomas ever wanted was to be a poet and study at Oxford. I wonder, what if his family had understood him better, what if they had let the facade of royalty not interfere with his simple desires? We might have had many more great creations. A genius might not have gotten lost to Opium. It pained me to see such misfortunes could befall a scholar of such caliber.

Wish to Read More:

I wanted to read more of it, especially on following points.

The relation Tuan and Captain McKerrars shared or what drove the captain to opium.
Thomas’s mother, why she was so stern etc.
What really happened to Thomas’s sister and what about his other siblings. Like his brother whom he meets. Could they never help Thomas?

Recommendations:

I recommend this to all fans of Historical Fiction who enjoy traveling back in time to claim a piece of history for themselves or to learn something new, something buried underneath dust and rubble of time.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC of this book.

Thomas De Quincey became an overnight sensation with the publication of his autobiography, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, released in 1821. Wildly received in his day for this racy, seductive thriller, De Quincey was well-connected with friends like Coleridge and Wordsworth, and his life is the basis for Brian Keaney's historical fiction The Alphabet of Heart's Desire. This story is delivered by three young narrators: Tom De Quincey himself, Anne the teenage doxy (prostitute) he credits with saving his life, and Tuah an eventually freed slave. These three characters undergo varying degrees of tumult and tragedy, all equally entertaining and with story arcs that share a very similar pacing.

Keaney is an excellent, imaginative British writer, his descriptions and historic terminology are captivating and witty. I think the entire premise of this book is brilliant, filling in the unknown bits of a scandalous literary hero's shadowy life - but I wish Keaney would have further exploited his artistic license here and come up with more answers to numerous mysteries: what actually killed Thomas's beloved sister? What did their sinister brother allude to when he said "the basis of taxation in Greenhay is obedience, and the chief industry of our little kingdom is death." Why was Thomas kicked out exactly? Who was the letter in French from, was it intended for Thomas or for a different Thomas De Quincey? Who were Mrs. Sedgwick and Mr. Patterson, who got rid of Anne? Why would Thomas never venture back to Archie's, and simply find Anne there? Also what exactly is the Alphabet of Heart's Desire supposed to be? I enjoyed reading this book, I was thoroughly entertained while reading it, but I'm left feeling frustrated afterwards. Apropos of a book about laudanum, I suppose.

This is beautifully written historical fiction with three captivating protagonists and some engaging minor characters. The book is very descriptive and there is a real sense of the period and atmosphere. It is loosely based on the early life of the British author Thomas De Quincey and the story is told in alternating chapters by Thomas, Anne (his first love) and Tuah (who was invented by the author for this book). The three characters are about the same age and the author follows them from their childhoods. The characters are linked by opium, literature and the fact that each has been cast adrift. My only problem with this book is the title, which makes sense in context but unfortunately sounds vaguely like a cheesy romance novel. There is love in this book but it is not a romance novel.

Thomas was an aspiring poet from a wealthy family but, after being sent to a series of dreary households, he wound up on his own and destitute in London. "...Thomas De Quincey was singularly unprepared for the teeming, villainous, bustling, cunning barbarity that was the nation of London."

Anne and her widowed mother lived in a run down room that they couldn't afford. "Down in the basement there was a collection of thieves that would have taken the steam off your piss and sold it back to you as a cure for scurvy." And then their landlord offered them someplace even lower, provided that they worked as washerwomen. Life kept going from bad to worse for Anne and she wound up in a brothel. Eventually she rescued Thomas and they shared love and laudanum.

Tuah was an orphan taken when he was 9 by Dutch slave traders from his village on an unspecified island. On the slave ship he learned "... a great and terrible truth, that it matters not how bad things seem to be, there is always worse that can be for a man." He was sold to a ship captain, who taught him English, and remained on the ship for three years before they landed in London.

I loved each of these characters and enjoyed this book tremendously. I would be happy to read more by this author.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.